As for the demo's gameplay, I'd say it was fun but nothing revolutionary. The AI, in particular, seemed pretty retarded. I was shooting at one guy, then I shot behind him, so he turned around and started walking backwards towards me. Another time, I tranquilized the gunner of a boat and the driver just sat there. Didn't even try to retreat. Then I went into a camp, stealthily killed everyone, then a guard walked by one of the corpses and just stood there staring at a tree.

I really hope they work on the AI before the game comes out because it's really pretty bad right now. The AI in STALKER was far better.

Edit: Oh wait, the game comes out in November. Looks like the AI is going to stay retarded.

the prevailing paternal monotheism (of which there are 3 main versions) is an extension of a few thousand year old turf wars involving different groups of desert tribals.. and even Yahweh was once part of a much larger pantheon of canaanite gods - the main thrust for monotheism was the desire for stronger tribal identity through socio-religious focus of the people on a singular entity, and delegation of more authority to paternal elders

i find it endlessly amusing when christians attempt to debate and pontificate upon the logistical and theoretical basis of their beliefs without knowing anything about the much older religions and mythological systems that spawned them, not to mention other unrelated systems of much more complex cosmology and extrapolations of actual practical wisdom

Its clear to me now that Crysis has taken the crown for most advanced game engine, I truly believe its 2 or 3 years ahad of everything else, maybe even 5. Not just the engine either, I found the whole package from the voice acting to the cinematic sequences even the menus and HUD to be 9.5 or 10 on a scale of 10.

Is that a 9.5/10 now, or 2-3 years from now when there's hardware available to allow it to run like it should be played?

I have a $400 video card in a mid-high end computer and can't play this game for crap. I played Bioshock with everything on high at 1920x1080.

Sorry, but this game isn't that much more advanced that the same system should only play the game with settings that make it look worse than other FPS's that came out this year. Just, no thanks.

I don't know about the ice part, but the plane scene it's because of the volumetric clouds. Not ah 'OMFG THAT'S AMAZING' technology, but still hard enough on even the best hardware that you can't get playable FPS if your anywhere near them :p IE pointless until hardware catches up.

Now as to the ice. It seams even kick arse machines drop dramatically in frames at that part, which IMHO doesn't bode well when 1/2 way through the game the entire island converts to that look. Could be um.. very bad.

How does a neutral party like myself choose a religion? There is no reason to pick one over another. As a matter of fact there as so many, your odds are you are going to pick incorrectly.

Why not sacrifice bulls to Zeus? There's no less evidence for him as any other religion.

Heh true. I'd say that some people tend to feel the touch of the divine and some do not. In some areas of the world those that do not have to play along because if you don't you're up shit creek, (and don't think I don't include the US in that general listing.)

So for those that do feel the need or desire for religion. I'd say find one that is most appealing and 'feels' the best for you, and go with it. Screw what your neighbor says, he knows no better then anyone else. Just be careful if that religion you choose isn't a little at odds with the ones of your neighbors, cause that rarely leads to a peaceful co-existence. I for one, know all about that lol.

So, because theres always that slim, nearly non-existent chance that everything in the bible is true, not believing it word for word is the wrong choice because, well it could be right?

Well hell, I bought a brand new car today. But you know what? It might break down, the gas line fly off and it might just blow up in my face the moment I turn the key.

So I think I'll walk everywhere from now on, cause, I don't want my car to blow up in my face, and theres an imperceivably small chance that it will, so I might as well avoid that fate entirely by walking. Sure it'll take me an extra 2 hours to get to work, but I'd rather plan an extra 2 hour walk tomorrow then die cause my car blew up.

How does a neutral party like myself choose a religion? There is no reason to pick one over another. As a matter of fact there as so many, your odds are you are going to pick incorrectly.

Why not sacrifice bulls to Zeus? There's no less evidence for him as any other religion. Hell if I was going to pick one or the other, why wouldn't I pick the one that gets you chicks in the afterlife?

You bring up some interesting points. I think your professor was being facetious.

The dinosaurs thing is an interesting notion. Obviously you know enough about the subject to know that there's a problem with the timelines and also that if Genesis is true, then Dinosaurs and Man must have co-existed. I really don't have a problem with it myself. Human beings were bringing down wholly mammoths and whales. We love killing things, the bigger the better. That's why we had all those rich guys going to Africa for their big game safaris. It might not seem plausible to you, but my position is that Satan altered a large segment of Eden's creatures, warping them to become the horrors that we know as dinosaurs. And why not, Satan was allowed to tempt humanity into taking the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, and he was allowed to wreak havoc on poor Job. And he'll be allowed to have a son of his own, the antiChrist, and to be in control of the entire world's armies and governments at the end of days. So why not? Just because it isn't written or remembered doesn't mean it isn't so. We don't know much about the war in heaven that caused 1/3 of the angels to become demons either, but it happened. And all those cities that became abandoned and forgotten, then centuries later we dig them out of the ground where they were buried and find gold and jewels; you'd think that they'd be stolen, but they were still there. Many mysteries prevail. This is just another one.

At any rate, you can't prove God exists. If you could, then it would be knowledge. And faith cannot exist within knowledge; therefore no one could be saved by faith. It's God's job to help indirectly through answered prayers, not stand before us as a glowing icon. It would ruin everything that he planned. His one and only Son would have died for nothing. We will never prove God, just as we will never prove that He doesn't exist, just as we will never prove the big bang theory. All we can do is realize that life is a part of knowing and a part of not knowing. The mysteries of life are there for us to ponder. But to categorically deny Christ because you can't prove He was the Son of God isn't useful.

Look at it this way, if you don't believe and it turns out to be true; then the result is not favorable. But if you believe in it and turns out to be false, then how can trying to live a better life have harmed you? Christianity is the only logical conclusion to arrive at. Not believing is irrational, because of the possiblity of being wrong on that side of the fence is to not have eternal life in heaven. Logically, a person who thinks of the benefits of their choices will always choose God because it is the best choice to make, even if it turns out to be wrong. But if it turns out to be true, then it will be so wonderful to become part of an eternal heaven where there is no tears, no boredom, no hunger, no poverty, and such continuous unending joy; how could any sane, rational human being decide otherwise???This comment was edited on Oct 27, 21:01.

loved the demo, but thought the end looked too much like the aliens in Chicken Little.

You can't compare the gameplay to quake or ut this game has physics, trees fall down, buildings collapse, how can you compare the two. The suit works for me, it's not just run and gun. Camo to move close or speed, strength to take a guy down hand to hand or to jump on buildigs to get a better advantage, without goofy jump pads! The gameplay is there unless you just use w,s,a,d and the mouse button to shoot.

I'm assuming you didn't like ET:QW Sponge, as that's by far the most 'quake3' like tactical modern multiplayer shooter. It has just about everything you asked for. But some dislike it. I had some fun with it but it wasn't really for me. I've been sticking with TF2 mostly for my multiplayer fun hehe.

Dude if you wanted a game that was all about fraging the sh*t out of guys in Death Match, Q3 was the choice. Sure we were beginning to move away from that towards the standard of today, 'tactical' shooters and mutliplayer that consists more of capture and hold then 'kill anything that moves.'

I would absolutely LOVE a game like Quake3 combined with the deep teamplay found in more modern games. A mix of RTCW/ET-style teamplay and objectives, Quake physics, weapons (not every gun needs to be hitscan, or bullet based!), hell, even Crysis vehicles.

I just don't find having to crouch/prone & ironsight every other firefight to be fun for me. You don't have to remove all that Quake stuff to make a game tactical.

Speed (referring to Q3 and UT style games) and tactics are not mutually exclusive.

Dude if you wanted a game that was all about fraging the sh*t out of guys in Death Match, Q3 was the choice. Sure we were beginning to move away from that towards the standard of today, 'tactical' shooters and mutliplayer that consists more of capture and hold then 'kill anything that moves.'

But comparing UT99 deathmatch to Q3 deathmatch, UT99 sucked. The maps sucked. Sure they looked nice, but they had no flow, the gameplay was so slow, the weapons unbalanced, etc. Though to this day it seams that Epic cant make a map that flows well in Deathmatch to save their lives.

Oh and to the guy that says we won't see a better graphics engine for 2-5 years, 2 years perhaps, but 5? Theres simply no way. Not when the console crowd cums every time they see screenshots off a PS3 lol. The industry is FAR to focused on graphics right now (and thus why consoles can't do AI to save their lives, the hardware is having enough time calculating the graphics, let alone advanced AI.)

Anyway, for this year, it's clearly the best. Though I personally think the Crytech stuff is extremely gimicky. It does jungle REALLY good, and everything else is 'eh.. about average.' IMHO. But really, give it a two years, when we start seeing Ids new stuff a lot more, when it's more finished, it'll blow our minds.

In all seriousness, people just like different games and it has nothing to do with the quality of said games. For example I also thought ETQW was very meh. Granted I only played the demo, but give me TF2 for that kind of gameplay. A few friends and I all snagged it and played it on LAN for about 20 minutes. We were all sick of it by then and moved on. It just felt poorly done. The animations and the hit detection. Also, while I like Q3 (the above was a bit of a joke) I wouldn't imagine playing it over UT.

I do agree with you on Crysis. I am just not that impressed. It doesn't seem bad, but I don't get the hype either. It was ok, but that is about it. I do not, however, think anything is wrong with the game. It is probably just like FarCry and some of the other games I mentioned, I don't like them much - but plenty of others will

That's all well, I don't have problems with anyone who chose UT over Q3, as severely misinformed as they may be :P, or even ETQW. That's really the whole point: I didn't see it as anything more than a pretty game with the same boring gunplay that's been common recently, NOT that I have unsatisfiable standards as the post I was replying to claimed of me.

The average requirements back then? A PIII 500, ~64MB RAM, and 16-32MB video cards. In 5 years, we have almost a tenfold increase in CPU, ~25x increase in RAM, and an immeasurable increase in GPU power.

So for you to think that in the year 2013, that we will not be able to do more than Crysis with even a doubling of CPU power, and GPU power, yes, that would be ignorant. Just because you say you're not a fanboy by throwing in a few random doubts doesn't make it any more or less true.

And no, I don't like UT3 either. As you can probably tell, I chose Quake3 over UT99

Different things for diff... oh wait. Q3 over Unreal? Cmon... EWWWWW

In all seriousness, people just like different games and it has nothing to do with the quality of said games. For example I also thought ETQW was very meh. Granted I only played the demo, but give me TF2 for that kind of gameplay. A few friends and I all snagged it and played it on LAN for about 20 minutes. We were all sick of it by then and moved on. It just felt poorly done. The animations and the hit detection. Also, while I like Q3 (the above was a bit of a joke) I wouldn't imagine playing it over UT.

I do agree with you on Crysis. I am just not that impressed. It doesn't seem bad, but I don't get the hype either. It was ok, but that is about it. I do not, however, think anything is wrong with the game. It is probably just like FarCry and some of the other games I mentioned, I don't like them much - but plenty of others will